Legion World Forums LEGION OUTPOST Bits o' Legionnaire Business Postlo3w stories *LATEST UPDATE 7 APRIL*

Wow, this has been an epic ride!

The Legionnaires you picked to represent the sins is very interesting. So many other options;

Pride - Brainy, Dreamy
Envy - Threeboot Invisible Kid, perhaps Polar Boy?
Lust - Sun Boy
Gluttony - Tenzil!
Wrath - Timber Wolf, Wildfire?, post-kidnapping Shrinking Violet?
Sloth - ?
Greed - ?

Thanks! It's funny, I picked most of that team for their connection to Blok more than how they'd match the 7 sins so it was fun figuring out which one would suit each sin best...some of them write themselves (Diamond Damsel being filled with rage isn't much of a stretch) and some of them I was like mehh that'll do (Tinya's power is fully passive and she's been pretty sedentary lately, that kiiiinda fits Sloth if you squint)

I like your choices! Chlorophyll Kid might be an off the wall choice for either sloth or gluttony seeing how he's been shown in canon to have recurring weight issues....greed is probably the toughest one. Kinetix would be the obvious choice in the reboot Legion, can't really think of anyone else off the top of my head who fits!

Brin as lust, well there would be a fair amount of people who would agree with that

Loving your work Raz, the 7 deadly sins were a really unexpected group of villains though really liked how you had the team deal with them, in particular DD - you have really taken a throw away character from Val's book and given her some life - well done! Also Blok as the new Captain Marvel is very interesting, looking forward to discovering what the power of Shazam means to him.

Am looking forward to the showdown with the Alchemist and am concerned for Nuras team vanishing like that, you keep the pace up tremendously and know how to deliver a stonking cliffhanger.

More, more, more!

Thanks Harbinger! I am glad folks like DD....I only really introduced her because she was an off the wall bad guy in my first arc, I really like writing her as part of the team now though

Diamond Damsel is particularly cool, since she's a pre-existing Legion-adjacent character, making her feel less like an Original Character.

Yes, and DD fits in very well with the rest of the team. She has her moments without hogging the spotlight. Same for your other "new" Legionnaires, of course!

Raz another great installment. i have to agree i can't wait to see how Blok being a Captain Marvel. I'm looking forward to that plot point a lot!

Hmmmmm where did they go?

and as always one of my faves was front and center great job on DD, i like the twist about her being about to turn back at any time...i wonder what that means for her...ooo so many fun times ahead.

i echo the others MORE! MORE! MORE!

Thanks again peeps! The mystery of the missing Legionnaires won't be a mystery for very long at all as it happens! And Blok and Diamond Damsel should get some interesting and surprising developments from recent events as y'all have figured out

XEROX
The Sorceror's World
Standing in a sweet-smelling valley surrounded by exotic flowering plants and the lazy buzzing of tiny insects, Phantom Girl turned her face up to sunlight beaming through clouds that looked as though they were made of pink marshmallow. "This whole world is so amazing." She spread her arms out wide to embrace the warmth. "I don't think I'll ever get used to how it changes from one second to the next."

"It's weird," Timber Wolf bristled. "Like one of Sensor Girl's illusions but makes less sense. I hate magic."

"I've dreamed of coming here since I first heard of Xerox," Dragonmage joined their conversation. "it's everything I thought it would be and more." He gave a polite bow to Harlak standing nearby. "It's been an honour to meet you too, and the Black Witch of course. Hopefully next time we can meet under happier circumstances."

"You're welcome here any time, Xao Jin." Harlak surprised Dragonmage by pulling him close and patting him roughly on the back a couple of times. "My mistress feels the same way. The Sorceror's World is waiting for you when your path leads you here anew."

"Ship's ready to go!" Bouncing Boy called from where he and Projectra had landed their vessel a few metres away. He did a quick head count and saw that everyone was present except Blok and the Black Witch. "DD, can you grab Blok please?"

Diamond Damsel looked across the field to see Blok and Mysa immersed in conversation on a low balcony jutting out from Mysa's castle. She was struck with how much more welcoming the building looked now than it had when they arrived...now that Blok and Mysa Nal were reunited. Diamond Damsel took a step towards them, then faltered.

Phantom Girl saw the discomfort in Diamond Damsel's body language even if the harshness of her face betrayed nothing. "I'll get him," Tinya volunteered, giving Diamond Damsel a secret look of support. "I want to say goodbye to Mysa again anyway." She flew off towards the two as the rest of her teammates boarded their ship.

Not far away, the Black Witch regarded Blok stiffly. "You do not possess the entirety of the power of Shazam," she explained. "The Rock of Eternity has been so fragmented that some of the power within it has been fragmented also. But even with a portion of those attributes added to your own you have become almost incomparably formidable, Blok of Dryad. I know you will use this power wisely."

"I do not care about the power," Blok smiled placidly. "Mysa, you have saved my life today. I know you have exiled yourself from those of us who love you because of this weight you carry, but it is just weight. It is not who you are."

Mysa's cold exterior was momentarily fractured. "I am--"

"You are a good woman," Blok interrupted her. "You are a good woman and a heroic woman, and I know none of us can presume to know your struggles now. But we all know you, Mysa. Whatever else happens, whatever you need to take on to survive this, at your core you will always be that person. We will never forget that and you should not either."

Mysa felt a rare rush of emotion and didn't know what to say. It was at that instant that Phantom Girl appeared, discretely clearing her throat as she floated above the balcony. "Sorry guys, we really need to go. There's still no sign of Dreamy's team anywhere."

"Of course, Phantom Girl." Blok laid a giant stone hand streaked with gold gently on Mysa's bare shoulder. "Thank you again Mysa. I owe you more than I can ever repay."

"You already have repaid me." She touched his hand uncertainly, her own hand tiny by comparison. "I wish you luck, my...friends."

**********
PIAZ ASTEROID BELT
On board a Legion Cruiser
"Okay, let's go over it again." Kid Computo stared intently at six flight rings gleaming on the console before her as Shadow Lass ended communications with Bouncing Boy. "Duplicate Damsel, Tellus and I had caught up with you guys en route to the Sorceror's World....Tellus and I came on board this cruiser while Duplicate Damsel took our ship back to Mars. We came by this asteroid belt, Dream Girl had one of her visions and told you and me we had to hide so you did your shadow thing...and now the only thing left of Dream Girl, Star Boy, Sun Boy, Polar Boy, Tellus and Mon-El are their flight rings. Did I miss anything?"

"There's nothing to miss," Shadow Lass responded. "There's no point repeating what we already know again and again. Somebody's taken Mon and the others, we need to stop distracting ourselves with how they could have done it and start focusing on getting them back."

"If Dawnstar were here..." Kid Computo began.

"Well she's not," Shadow Lass snapped. "She's on a mission, we're going to need to figure this out ourselves. Bouncing Boy's team is on its way and Dragonmage's sorcery could probably find us an answer but by then it may be too late."

"There must be something we're missing," Danielle frowned. "Dream Girl said the two of us specifically had to hide. Why us? I mean you make sense, it was your shadow power that kept us hidden from our mystery bad guy. But why me? I checked the ship's systems and it's like rest of the team were here one second and gone the next."

"Maybe Dream Girl made a mistake," Shadow Lass stood up from her own seat and paced the bridge. "She made a mistake rushing a bunch of Legionnaires off on some fool's errand to fight her sister on Xerox, she could be wrong about this as well. Damn it, we can't track their flight rings...Tellus would have been useful, he might have been able to scan telepathically for them at least."

"Wow," Danielle arched an eyebrow. "Sorry to be such a burden, Shadow Lass."

The Talokkian champion stopped pacing and her voice softened. "I'm sorry Danielle, that was rude of me. I'm just worried about Mon, and the others of course. Half the Legion have enhanced senses of some description or another. Ultra Boy or Supergirl would already have found them by now. It's so frustrating feeling this useless, I shouldn't take that out on you though."

"It's okay," Kid Computo sighed. "I know what you mean. Telescopic vision would definitely come in handy now. Or magic dragon vision. Or any kind of.....ohh, how could I be so dumb?!" She slapped herself on the forehead. "I haven't even thought about using my own stupid powers!"

"I don't understand," Shadow Lass folded her arms. "We already scanned for their ship using the cruiser's long-range sensors, surely your power doesn't have greater range than that?"

"It doesn't," Danielle answered, becoming more excited. "But our ship's sensors can be fooled by a good enough cloaking device...or even heavy ore concentrations in this asteroid belt, which I bet is exactly what they're relying on! But if there's any technology in range at all, no ore is gonna stop me from finding it. A cloaking device is technology itself! Idiot!"

"Beat yourself up over it later," Shadow Lass interrupted the younger girl.

"I will," Danielle replied, before turning to Shadow Lass with a cheeky grin. "Actually on second thoughts...let's just beat our mystery bad guys up. I've found them."

**********
In their battered ship surrounded by a three-dimensional maze of mineral-rich rocks and planetoids, two Khunds dumped the last of their burden on the hard metallic floor. "We should awaken Star Boy," one of the huge pink-skinned warriors spat, "And challenge him to combat."

"Star Boy will get his chance," a much smaller third individual snarled. This one wore a dark tattered robe, and he pulled its hood away from his scarred features now to glare hatefully at Star Boy and the other Legionnaires enveloped in a golden glow at his feet. "And there will be no combat. That was my mistake last time. This time we kill one of them, and leave them on this rock. They won't know what happened at first....they'll wonder how they came from travelling on their ship to lying in an asteroid belt with a dead comrade. But eventually they'l put the pieces together...they'll realise that they've been frozen in time...and they'll know that there is no escape from the Quantum Avenger. I can strike anywhere and any time. And one by one I'll take everything from him until he knows what it's like to be alone like me."

"You're not going to strike while they're in stasis?" the other Khund questioned, aghast. "Where is the honour in slaying an enemy like that? They might as well be asleep!"

"I don't care about honour!" James Cullen spat. "I care about revenge! He took my sister from me! He killed Jazmin!" The young Xanthui boy was much slighter than either of the Khund cyborgs, but some gleam in his eye gave them both pause.

"Very well," one of them replied, obviously not happy about the situation. "Which one? We did not bring anything powerful enough to affect the Daxamite. You will need to choose one of the others."

"The fish will do." James pointed at Tellus. "Disgusting thing. Rhenarr, put it out of its misery."

"If you want the creature dead," the Khund named Rhenarr took his handgun from its holster and handed it to the boy, "You do the job. I best my foes in combat, I don't kill them like a woman in the night."

"Oh come on," a girl's voice remarked from the corridor leading to their airlock. "Sexism? I know you're Khunds, but even your society must have developed beyond that by now."

The three turned on the newcomers, Rhenarr reflexively training his gun on them. Kid Computo leaned lazily against the open doorway while Shadow Lass stood ready for a fight right beside her. Tasmia's cape became with licks of shadow snaking slowly across the floor towards the men. "How did you get in here?" the self-proclaimed Quantum Avenger demanded of them.

Kid Computo raised her hand and smiled sarcastically. "You should treat your ship better. It likes me more than you, I asked it not to let you know we were boarding and hey, here we are."

"It doesn't matter!" James yelled. "You won't be here for long!" He gestured at the two women, then stamped his foot like a petulant child. "Why can't I freeze you? Stop it!"

"I guess your cybernetics like me more than you too," Danielle continued casually, utterly enjoying herself. "No quantum powers, no zap guns, no hidden Khundish weapons. Might as well throw in the towel now, boys."

Rhenarr threw his weapon across the room and grinned at the two women viciously. "Finally, a real fight! We don't need Khundish weapons to defeat you when we have Khundish strength. Come, Kharish. One Legionnaire for each of us." The Khund named Kharish had a cybernetic leg and had to drag it to walk, and Rhenarr's spiked metal arm hung limply at his side. Neither of them seemed to mind the disadvantage though. If anything, it made them anticipate victory even more.

Shadow Lass stepped before Kid Computo and gently pushed her back. "Leave this to me, Danielle. I think these gentlemen need to learn exactly what a woman in the night is capable of." The room filled with utter blackness, followed by the brief and violent sounds of a very one-sided combat. When Tasmia's shadow field retreated, she was standing on the other side of the room over two unconscious cyborgs.

"You - you can't do this!" James protested. "You can't do this to me! Damn you, Legionnaires! Damn you all!" He bolted straight at Kid Computo, too far away for Shadow Lass to intervene. Eyes wide, Danielle stumbled over her own feet as she tried to move out of the way and hit the deck. To her surprise, the Quantum Avenger followed suit, an aura of twinkling black air pinning him to the ground. "No!" James cursed through gritted teeth. "No!"

"I'm afraid so, Jimmy." With the quantum devices deactivated, their effect had finally faded from the captured Legionnaires. Star Boy lowered his hand as the other heroes gathered round. "I know you're hurting," Thom continued, "And I know it doesn't seem like it right now, but one day it will get better. You're just gonna have to trust me on this one, kid."

While Shadow Lass rushed to embrace Mon-El, Dream Girl approached Kid Computo. "I'm glad I dreamed you two to safety," Nura smiled. "You really came through for us today." She offered Danielle a hand and helped her to her feet. "But you, young lady, really need to learn how to fight."

"Tell me about it," Danielle grunted, rubbing her sore butt. "I'll--"

"See me tomorrow after breakfast?" Nura finished. "Fabulous idea! Let's go home, everyone!"

**********
MARS
Legion of Superheroes Headquarters
As it turned out, Dream Girl's team returned to base at the same time as Bouncing Boy's team. The two ships emptied into the hangar together, and Bouncing Boy watched from behind as a dozen Legionnaires joked and shared conversation. Phantom Girl hung back and poked Chuck in the arm playfully. "Cred for your thoughts?"

"Just thinking...this is nice," Chuck smiled wearily. "I've been trying to be so positive for the team's sake lately and to be honest, I don't think I've been that good at it. We've all gone through a lot lately, it was really starting to feel like we were starting to sink under the weight of it all. Now though...Shady's back, Diamond Damsel's got a new lease on life, Blok came back from death's door better than before, I kind of feel like we're starting to mend fences with Mysa...Jimmy Quantum's gonna get the help he needs. And you know, for the first time since we moved to this place...it actually sort of feels like we're coming home."

"I know what you mean," Tinya smiled back. "I know it's not perfect, but it's like..the clouds have parted."

"And you," Chuck poked her back, "What about you? You seem a lot happier since the Sorceror's World if you don't mind me saying so PG!"

"Yeah. Yeah, I think I am." She paused as she considered her next words. "When we were possessed by those creatures...well I don't need to tell you how it felt. It was like...every impulse in me to just lay down and die took charge and was amplified to the Nth degree. And then when I went back to my home dimension, that was shocked out of me, but I realised...I've been acting like that since that whole thing with the Infinite Man anyway. I guess you'd call it depression more than sloth, but either way I was wallowing. And that's not who I want to be. It was horrible what happened to us, but I have Jo back, I have my friends, my family...I love all of you. I guess I remembered what I have in the present, and that's more important than anything that happened in the past."

"Good!" Chuck put his arm around Tinya's shoulder and gave her an affectionate hug. "I'm proud of you PG, and welcome back!"

"I couldn't have done it without you," Tinya kissed him on the cheek. "You've really been there for me lately Chuck and I appreciate that. Thank you. Now I think I should go find my boyfriend and show him how much I appreciate him." She phased through Bouncing Boy's arm and turned to give him a cheeky wink as she disappeared through the floor. Bouncing Boy laughed and shook his head as he continued walking through the hangar after his team.

In the team's mission monitor room, a copy of Luornu Durgo Taine updated logs to record that the two teams had returned to base. Another contacted Xanthu to confirm James Cullen and his Khund associates had been safely taken into custody. A third Duplicate Damsel sat at a console reading the first encrypted entry sent through from Mandalla regarding the Oversight Watch's recent activities.

Oblivious to her other copies, a fourth Luornu Durgo Taine sat in a chair biting her nails.

Watching an internal security monitor, she saw Tinya Wazzo kiss Chuck and Luornu watched her husband throw his head back in laughter as Tinya left his side.

Taking deep measured breaths, Luornu stood up and she left the room.

**********

Wow, a new installment so soon? Not that I'm complaining! I'm glad the disappearance of Nura's team was wrapped up so quickly. Nice to have James' story closed, sort of (I guess Jazmin's reappearance will come later )

Uh oh, jealous Luronu... doesn't look too good, but I think Chuck and Lu's marriage is going to be much stronger than that. And it was just a kiss on the cheek!

Your opening description of Xerox was very sweet, I liked how the different Legionnaires perceived it. Blok and Mysa.... aaaw bless them, they always seem to me to be the great love story that never was! Though DD and Blok make a fairly formidable combo now, looking forward to seeing what carnage you can get them involved with Dragonmage and Kharlak's bromance is sweet too,

James Cullen is such a poignant and sad character, hope we see him in the not too distant future. Loved the Khunds taking on Shady even with busted cybernetics - you got to admire their courage eh? Unusual couple to focus on - shady was a bit narky but Computo is coming into her own, good catch her sensing the other tech nearby. I can't really ever see her being a combatant though, she's more tactical, though at least a few moves in her repertoire wouldn't hurt so well done Dreamy for taking Danielle under her wing.

Chuck and Tinya's friendship seems to be blossoming, though jealous Lu is a scary thought, that lady is sharp!

As ever, thoroughly enjoyed your posts Raz, thanks.

More, more, more!

Thanks peeps! I was originally planning on stretching Tinya's PTSD out way longer but it just doesn't really seem to suit her, I think she is grounded enough as a character that she would be quite decisive once she decides the right way to deal with something. I definitely wouldn't wanna get on Luornu's bad side so we'll see where that one goes....

And thanks for noticing the Dragonmage/Harlak bromance Harbinger! That's one of those little things that just wrote itself and I think it's kinda cute

CADMU
Geneosphere Umbilical Station - Worldside
As Ultra Boy followed Elastic Lad through an open plaza towards the impossibly tall cylindrical tower which was their destination, two things stood out on the so-called science planet Cadmu. The first was a disconcerting lack of sentients. He’d also seen this when he’d first visited Cadmu and it was just as clear now. Since they’d arrived planetside, robots of various shapes and sizes far outnumbered any of the organic natives. Jo’s own homeworld Rimbor was overpopulated and under-resourced and though Rimbor might be an extreme example among the worlds of the United Planets, in Jo’s experience more worlds were closer to Rimbor than Cadmu. The second thing to catch his attention were the dual rows of giant holoboards lining the walkway. There were twelve boards in all, six on either side of him. They were fifteen feet high and almost twenty-five feet long, and each of them flickered different colors and tonal patterns at him. “I thought the Geneosphere was a building,” Jo remarked, “But it’s what…an artificial satellite? And this is a space elevator?” He glanced at the slender round tubed structure before them.

“Yep!” Elastic Lad answered jovially. “The Geneosphere was built as a full immersion environment so that we can study the lives of our predecessors as fully as possible. We could have set up a virtual archive here in one room of course, but the Geneosphere was designed by Tao-34. I never met any of his descendants because his line was wiped out 120 years ago, but everyone says he had a thing for artificial habitats. Tao-1 was one of the prime architects of Cadmu itself!”

“I suppose having the Geneosphere off-planet keeps your info safe when an army of Validuses decide to tear the place apart,” Jo mused. “This Tao guy sounds like he and Brainy would have gotten along, he must have been super smart what with this, creating the virtual social environments you guys use when you reincarnate - hey, wait a nano!” Jo seemed confused. “How do I know any of this stuff?! I never heard of this guy before we got here and now I can recite all his accomplishments without even thinking about it?”

“It’s the sublimi-boards.” Elastic Lad stretched his arms out to point at the large flickering holographic panels on either side of them. “They beam information directly into your conscious mind. We experimented with them as a more efficient way of sharing knowledge but you’ll only remember any of this for about twenty minutes so they weren’t really all that effective. But gosh, they’re a great replacement for a tour guide! Don’t you agree, Ultra Boy?”

“Huh.” Jo had always thought Elastic Lad was one of the stranger characters to have joined the Legion of Superheroes but seeing the world that had spawned Jams-Ols 5 made Jo realise that strange was a relative term. Ultra Boy followed Elastic Lad through the lobby’s security screens and into the space elevator. The elevator itself was a spacious capsule-sized room. As soon as the doors closed behind them and the room pressurised for its journey, the rounded walls showed the view outside and below them as they travelled through the atmosphere. Jo was impressed with the quality of the image, it almost seemed as though there really were no barrier between them and the open air.

“We found that having a view made the trip less boring,” Elastic Lad explained when he noticed Jo watching the screen surrounding them. “It’s a 30 minute trip, you wouldn’t want to just be staring at a blank wall for the whole time! If you prefer we can change it to a local infotainment channel though. I mean you’ve been flying under your own power for the longest time now, I expect this isn’t anything new for you. Oh wow Ultra Boy, I’m sorry! Did you want a seat? Gee, I really should have asked earlier! How rude of me! We keep them hidden in the floor panels normally to conserve space but it’s no trouble if you’d rather not stand. Standing doesn’t bother me, with my elasticised form I fatigue at a much lower rate than the average Cadmian!” The elevator breeped a location request at the two men and while Ultra Boy struggled to keep up with his teammate’s hyperactive chatter, Elastic Lad changed conversational tacks without missing a beat. “Leeta Lineage please, authorisation level: Neocaste.” The elevator breeped acknowledgement and Elastic Lad continued his rambling.

Meanwhile, somewhere much further away than planetary orbit a silent alarm triggered for the first time in years…

**********
DISPUTED TERRITORIES
Kraken of the Void Tavern
Uma Garan nursed her Khundish Whisky, her face hidden beneath a large crimson hood. The Kraken of the Void was a grimy bar packed with mostly criminal sentients of all races, but everyone here had the good sense to give Uma plenty of space. Out here among the border worlds, the Alchemist's murderous reputation was well-known. A pirate captain was nothing without a crew or a ship though, and the Legion of Superheroes had taken both those things from her. One more thing to hate them for. She finished her drink and caught the bartender’s attention to order another when a gloved hand passed a fresh glass to her before she could speak. Uma looked her benefactor up and down. It was a short woman, she couldn’t have been any more than 5’ tall. She was draped in loose-fitting folds of drab fabric, a hood and veil ensuring that no skin was exposed. “Saved you the trouble,” the woman remarked. “Name’s Digby, I was hoping we could have a talk.”

Uma used her Trommite power to analyse the drink’s contents. Once she was confident that there were no unusual additives, she finished it in one gulp and slammed the empty glass back down on the bar. “I’m not looking for conversation, stranger. Thanks for the drink.” She turned away from the newcomer and looked for the bartender once more.

“Maybe not,” the veiled woman continued unabated. “You are looking for a new ship though, aren’t you? You are the one they call the Alchemist, right?”

Uma turned back to the other woman, her face taut. “If you know who I am, you know what I can do. When I want a ship, I’ll take one. I don’t need to buy your second-hand goods and no amount of this whisky is going to change my mind on that. Now why don’t you leave before you start to annoy me.”

“Suit yourself,” the woman named Digby shrugged beneath her multiple layers. “But I’ve got a good ship, a good crew, and all we need is someone with the vision to lead us to the loot. If you want to lay down and die after the Legion of Superheroes whipped your ass though, I guess that’s your prerogative.” She turned around and walked off into the crowd without another word.

Uma sat and brooded silently for a moment before her temper got the better of her. “Wait,” she called out after the woman. “Nobody talks to me like that.” Digby kept walking, reaching the door to the tavern before Uma finally pushed through the crowd to catch her. “I said wait!” Uma snarled, grabbing hold of Digby’s shoulder as she stepped through the open doorway. Uma was startled as the woman inside the clothes abruptly vanished into thin air, leaving her holding an empty outfit. “What the..?” She stepped outside the tavern fully and looked around. She was gone!

With no warning, Uma felt a surge of electricity pass through her. She screamed out in pain, her back arching. Uma spun around to face her attacker and saw the Legionnaire Lightning Lass, her teammate Dawnstar standing by her side. “You hurt our friends,” Lightning Lass said bitterly. “You might have thought you could do that and get away with it, but nobody gets away from Dawnstar.”

“I did more than hurt your friends,” Uma growled at the heroes. “I killed them, just like I’m going to kill you. Except your death won’t be anywhere near so painless.” Before the cloaked woman could do more than raise her hand towards the Legionnaires, they vanished in a blur.

“Neither Blok nor Gas Girl are dead,” Dawnstar’s voice spoke from behind her. “And with my speed, you don’t stand a chance against us. Surrender.”

Uma turned to face them again, this time erecting an inertron wall to intercept Ayla’s next lightning blast. “You’re not the only one who can move fast, Legionnaire. Let’s see you outrace this.” She turned the other side of the wall into polonium, and was surprised to see the wall rocket straight up into the atmosphere before its lethal radiation could affect her foes. With the wall gone, Uma saw that Element Lad and Light Lad had joined the two women.

Light Lad gave Uma a sorrowful look. “Ayla shouldn’t have attacked you. Uma, we’re sorry. Please let us help you.”

“Help me? Like you helped my world? I think I’ve had enough of your help, Legion! I - ohhh, what have you done to me..?” She held her head with one hand, staggering and clutching at the outer wall of the tavern to stop herself from falling over as her world spun around her.

“That would be Shrinking Violet making her move,” Element Lad explained coldly. “She led you out here where there was no chance anybody else might be injured and I guess she’s just found your inner ear. Hard to transmute anything when you don’t even know which way is up, isn’t it?”

“You…” Uma grimaced and collapsed to her knees in the dirt. She struggled to glare at Element Lad, letting her head droop when the effort became too much. “You’re…the worst. They destroyed our world so you could find fame…prestige…are you happy, Arrah?”

“My family are dead,” Element Lad answered through gritted teeth. “Every single person I knew growing up is dead, and you dare ask me if I’m happy? The Legion made a horrible error in judgement Alchemist, but they weren’t the ones who destroyed our world. The Legion were the ones who gave me the opportunity to honour Trom. If you want to hate someone, hate Roxxas. Better yet, hate yourself. You’ve failed Trom more than anybody else alive.” Jan turned the oxygen around Uma’s face into an aluminium bubble enclosing her head. Dazed as she was, she couldn’t mount a defence and she collapsed within seconds. He dissipated the bubble and affixed a synaptic disruption headband to her before she could recover so she wouldn’t be able to use her powers. Shrinking Violet regained normal size nearby as Jan finished cuffing the semi-conscious villain.

“You really shouldn’t have zapped her,” Light Lad chided Lightning Lass. “We could have settled this without the fight.”

“I know,” Ayla answered shame-faced. “I was just…all I could think about was what she did to poor Blok and Gas Girl, and I thought about what she might have done to one of us…I couldn’t risk her hurting any more of my friends. I’m sorry if I made things worse.”

“You already did that on Trom,” Element Lad said simply. “She’s responsible for her own choices though, Lightning Lass. And if she chooses to desecrate the memory of our people, she deserves to be treated like any other villain. She’s not going to be able to walk while she’s wearing Brainiac 5’s disruptor. Someone needs to carry her back to our ship, I don’t want anything more to do with her.” He took to the sky before anyone could respond.

“I’ll take her,” Light Lad offered quietly. Uma had recovered full consciousness already, but unable to think coherently through the synaptic disruptor’s interference, all she could do was roll her head impotently and cry furious tears. Darvan used his power to nullify her weight and lifted her gently in both arms. While Dawnstar watched Element Lad fly away with silent concern, Darvan looked across to Ayla and Vi. He’d hoped that tracking Uma out here to this remote dirtball would give them a chance to help Uma and allow everyone to begin healing.

Now though, he wondered if they’d achieved the exact opposite.

**********
MARS
Legion of Superheroes Headquarters
In her private quarters, Iris Jacobs stood in front of a full-length mirror in her underwear. Her heart pounded as she looked over every inch of her very human body. She held a lock of red hair between her thumb and forefinger, felt each individual strand with a sensitivity of touch she’d not known for a thousand years. Her doorbell chimed and Iris was jarred back to reality.

“Diamond Damsel?” It was Blok’s voice. “I was wondering if I might have a moment of your time?”

“Just a minute!” Her voice sounded so strange to her after all this time, so tremulous. A few seconds later, it was Diamond Damsel rather than Iris Jacobs who stood at the door in her familiar pink and blue costume. “How can I help you?” she asked.

“May I come in?” Blok asked.

Diamond Damsel was taken aback. Blok had never been into her quarters before. “I…yes, of course! Sorry!” She stepped aside awkwardly and allowed Blok to walk in. Diamond Damsel’s room was sparsely decorated. The only furnishings she had were a chair and desk in the corner, and a holoprojector which sat in a corner of the empty room. “How are you feeling?” she asked nervously. “Has Bouncing Boy run you through any tests since coming back from the Sorceror’s World?”

“Brainiac 5 has scheduled a few hours for a full analysis tomorrow,” Blok answered. “And I am feeling quite well, thank you for asking. That is not what I came here to discuss though.”

“Then…what..?”

Blok stood before Diamond Damsel, the glowing lightning bolt insignia in his chest gleaming in the facets of her body. “I owe you an apology,” he said sincerely.

“What?” Once more Diamond Damsel was taken aback. “What on Earth could you have to apologise for?”

“I have had difficulty coming to terms with your actions on Dryad,” Blok explained. “Not knowing what you traded Khor to guarantee our safety…it is something that has not sat well with me, as I am certain you have noticed.”

“Blok, no.” Diamond Damsel looked into eyes that were once stone and were now orbs of gold inset in stone. “God, if anybody needs to apologise it’s me. I should have realised, after everything he did to you…I don’t blame you for hating me. But I couldn’t go through that isolation again, I couldn’t - “

“I could never hate you, Diamond Damsel.” He held her arms in enormous gold-streaked hands. “The truth is, it doesn’t matter. My objection was based on my own discomfort but if you had not acted, Bouncing Boy and Phantom Girl would surely have died. You and I would have died eventually. You saved all of our lives, and that is what I should have focused on. Since absorbing the power of Shazam, I have found a new perspective. I should rightfully have perished after the Alchemist transformed me, but due to the actions of my loved ones I was given a new chance at life. And you were at the forefront of those loved ones. Despite the distance I placed between us, you did not hesitate to come to my rescue once again. I do not care what happened on Dryad, Diamond Damsel. I just want you to be a part of my life.”

“I told him he was going to need to transfer his consciousness into you,” she blurted, looking away. “I didn’t warn him about Dryad’s destruction, but I gave him centuries to refine that spell until he was good enough at it to evade any and all detection. He nearly killed Stone Boy’s people, he made you go through losing your own people for a second time, and it’s all my fault. I betrayed you, Blok.”

Blok held Diamond Damsel’s chin and turned her head to face him once more. “You only told him what happened in our own past, Diamond Damsel. And nothing in our past can hurt us. You betrayed nobody. You saved the four of us, and if it means I get to spend the rest of my life with you nothing could make me happier.”

If she could cry, Diamond Damsel would cry now. Overcome with emotion, she stared at Blok for a long moment before hugging him fiercely. He held her in his arms and for the first time in a long time, everything in Diamond Damsel’s life felt right.

**********

Nice! Closure for one segment, semi-closure for another, and a lot of action in store for the third. Great job raz!



Took a stab at the 7 Deadly Sins for the Postboot version. Not that I'm considering writing one on my own, but it was a fun exercise Agree with Greed for Zoe.

Greed - Kinetix
Lust - Triad Purple. She was all over Superboy...
Pride - Cosmic Boy (he has had his holier-than-thou moments!) or Umbra (esp. during her early Legion membership)
Gluttony - Chuck Taine could fit, actually.
Wrath - Post-Hypertaxis Sensor, still angry at her
Envy - Invisible Kid (often felt challenged when his position on the team was being "threatened")
Sloth - Gates (he would always complain about all the teleporting he was asked to do )

Loving your work Raz, just saying...

Thanks as usual kind folks! I am interested to know if the next instalment blows minds or if it's something y'all saw coming ages ago so let me know

MARS
Legion of Superheroes Headquarters, Training Tesseract
Screwing up her face in annoyance, Supergirl turned first to Mon-El by her side and then to their quarry standing on the other side of the large open room. “You think you’re so tough, buddy?” she postured. “Let’s see how well you do against the two of us at the same time!”

The two impossibly powerful Legionnaires rushed forward in a blur, slamming against their target and fellow teammate Blok with earth-shattering impact. The stone giant held his ground with only a stoic grunt to betray any effort on his part. As powerful as he was though, he couldn’t hold off a Kryptonian and a Daxamite working in unison. Slowly but surely he started losing ground, sliding back an almost imperceptible few centimetres.

“That will be all,” Brainiac 5’s voice announced calmly over the room’s intercom. “I have all the readings I require, and we don’t want to risk any damage to the tesseract’s structural integrity with your rough-housing.” A window appeared in mid-air, Brainiac 5 standing on its other side along with Bouncing Boy and Diamond Damsel.

Supergirl gave Blok a playful wink before turning around to face Brainiac and the others. “So what’s the verdict, Brainy? You think he can take Validus on his own?”

Brainiac 5 arched an eyebrow. “As Validus has never been kind enough to submit to controlled strength tests, I could only guess. And no Coluan with the slightest amount of self-pride would ever deign to do something so primitive as guess at an answer. Blok is unmistakably much improved thanks to this transformation however. To put it in terms the rest of you will understand, he’s almost as fast as Timber Wolf. He’s stronger than even Mon-El, though as we’ve seen just now not quite a match for you and Mon-El combined. I’m fairly confident in saying that Blok may even be stronger than Night Girl at her peak, though we need to verify that obviously.”

“The powers of Captain Marvel aren’t just physical though, are they?” Mon-El joined the conversation. “My memory’s a little hazy but I seem to remember there’s an attribute associated with each letter of the magic word?”

“That is correct,” Blok answered. “I have been touched by the wisdom of Solomon, the strength of Hercules, the stamina of Atlas, the power of Zeus, the courage of Achilles and the speed of Mercury. I do not possess the full power of Shazam, but - “

“Heyyy,” Supergirl interrupted. “Aren’t you supposed to not be able to say the S word without magic lightning, transformation, yadda yadda yadda?”

“The fragment of the Rock of Eternity which empowered me was not sufficient on its own to respond to the magic word,” Blok explained. “It took Mysa’s sorcery to complete the spell, and it would take a mage to complete the spell once more. Until the day a magic user turns their skill to the task again, Shazam is just a word now.”

“I suppose that’ll avoid weird word gymnastics,” Supergirl said. “Remind me to tell you about Captain Marvel Jr some day.” Mon-El chuckled to himself at the thought, he’d completely forgotten about the superhero who couldn’t say his own name until Kara had brought him up.

“There is no need,” Blok countered with a knowing smile. “I already know of Freddy Freeman and the unique challenges he faced. It seems even a portion of the wisdom of Solomon brings with it many benefits.”

A tone chimed politely and Bouncing Boy quickly consulted the omnicom he’d brought with him. Diamond Damsel looked down to the bearded hero. “A leader’s work is never done, huh?”

“Seems that way,” Chuck agreed. “Luckily for this leader, work involves spending some time with my beautiful wife so I’ll say goodbye to you all for now. Thanks for running those tests Brainy, upload the results when you get a chance and I’ll have a proper look later.” Everyone bade Chuck goodbye and he left the tesseract to enter the part of their base which actually existed on Martian soil. When they’d designed their new headquarters Brainiac 5 had recommended the creation of an exodimensional space for power and combat training to minimise the chance of damage to the building itself, and Chuck had to agree that it was a good idea but he still quietly felt a little uneasy every time he entered the tesseract until he stepped foot back in the real world again.

This time, that unease wasn’t going away. Duplicate Damsel had been compiling reports from Mandalla on the activities of the Oversight Watch, and Bouncing Boy was on his way now to find out exactly what two of his former students had been up to with their posse of supervillains and spies. He’d almost prefer to be dealing with an attack on the building.

**********
CADMU
Geneosphere Archival Level 7
Ultra Boy lay flat on a rooftop, bored out of his mind. He’d been impressed by the precision of the Geneosphere’s virtual environment when Elastic Lad had first activated it around the two heroes, it was almost as real as one of Sensor Girl’s illusions. In an instant they’d been transported from a windowless amber-walled room high above Cadmu’s surface to the city streets of Rimbor. The stifling Summer humidity, the bustling crowds, all that was missing was the scent of billions of sentients mingled with the world’s higher than average pollution levels, and Jo couldn’t say he missed that part of his homeworld too much. Narration adapted from Leeta-87’s own mindfiles had explained how the galaxy-famed heroine had tracked the Van Lunt Gang to Rimbor, and Ultra Boy and Elastic Lad had thrilled to watch her take down the entire gang single-handed. Since then however, Leeta’s story had been no more exciting than that of any other sentient in the United Planets.

“Elastic Lad, I’m dying here.” Jo groaned and covered his head with both hands. “None of this is telling us what happened to Leeta after we fought Brimstone in the past. Do we really need to watch her every meal and workout for the next…how long till that stuff happens anyway? How far back in her life have you programmed this thing for?”

“Gosh, I’m sorry Ultra Boy!” Elastic Lad blushed. “I’m always super fascinated by the exploits of heroes. I could watch this a hundred times and never get tired of it! I forget sometimes that not everybody is as interested in the lives of the heroes of the United Planets as I am, and most residents of Cadmu are happy to devote themselves to a lifetime of research here without ever leaving the world…well on Cadmu, not on the Geneosphere.” He laughed at himself. “Obviously, I mean we have a smaller population here than a lot of other worlds but even we wouldn’t all be able to fit in the Geneosphere! It would need to be at least 6.3 times bigger-“

“Elastic Lad!”

Jams-Ols 5 cleared his throat. “Right. Sorry. Of course. Do you want me to program the Lineage Immersion for the week of the battle with Brimstone? It might give us a clue why Leeta-87 never told anybody about us or why there’s no record of the fight or give us some idea what she might have done afterwards or-“

“Yes!” Jo consciously lowered his voice and tried again. “Yes. Please. That would be great, thanks E-Lad. Wait, we’re not going to have to live through a week of her life in realtime are we?”

Elastic Lad threw his head back and laughed. “Heck no! I’ll just program the Immersion to remove any routine behaviours, that should cut it down a whole lot. Anything it doesn’t pick up on we can flash through anyway.” He vocalised a 7 digit code to freeze the virtual environment around them and verbally reprogrammed the Lineage Immersion program while Ultra Boy wondered once again why he was subjecting himself to this when there were so many easier ways to investigate. Elastic Lad was so eager at the prospect of being able to help though that Jo didn’t have the heart to stop him now. Still…he could think of a million ways he’d prefer to be spending his day. He wondered if it would be rude for him to call Tinya while Elastic Lad was working.

“Okay!” Elastic Lad clapped his hands as the world faded around them and reformed.

Ultra Boy felt a pang of deja vu as he saw the familiar spires of Cadmu build themselves from the ground up. They were now in Leeta-87’s living room, and Jo stood as he felt too awkward lying on her floor. She walked straight through them to her kitchen, humming as she consulted a cookbook and entered instructions into the auto-chef. It occurred to Jo for the first time that when she wasn’t beating up criminals or hunting down terrorists, she looked utterly normal. 87 lifetimes and she looked no different to any other woman on any other street on a dozen worlds he could name. Then something else occurred to him. “Hey, E-Lad? These environments are built from files downloaded from Leeta’s own mind, right?”

“Yep!” Elastic Lad beamed. “Better than any autobiography, don’t you think?”

“Sure,” Jo agreed casually. “But if that’s the case…why are we seeing this from a third person perspective? People remember the things that happen in their life from behind their own eyes, not looking at themselves from the outside. How are we seeing Leeta’s life like we were actually in it following her around?”

“It’s the Lineage Immersion program,” the red-haired teen explained while the virtual woman went about her household business. “It builds a simulation of the subject based on their mindfile and a full spectrum physical analysis and then figures out the best way to interpret that from there. Studies found that researchers and other visitors were more at ease if they were made to feel like they were viewing the subject from outside and not being made to feel like they actually were the subject. I can point you to some really fascinating articles if you’d like some more info!”

“That’s okay, thanks.” Jo arched an eyebrow. “Uhh, is that meant to be happening?”

Elastic Lad followed Jo’s confused expression and saw that Leeta-87 had answered an incoming communication on her videophone. The Lineage Immersion program seemed to have stalled there however, and the same couple of seconds continued on a loop. She walked from her auto-chef to the videophone over and over again, forever answering a call that never came.

“Gee whiz, that’s annoying.” Elastic Lad frowned and recited a maintenance code. “These files are meant to be monitored regularly to avoid errors like this, it’s really important. We’ll need to try and restore the file but that will take a while so let’s just skip through it for now.” Jo’s attention wandered again as Elastic Lad spoke commands at the program. Jo noticed an old-fashioned two-dimensional portrait on one of Leeta’s walls showing herself and a male partner. He looked awfully familiar, Jo knew if he gave it a minute he’d figure it out...

“Boo.” A female voice whispered into Ultra Boy’s ear and he nearly jumped out of his skin.

Realising instantly who was behind the voice, he spun around and embraced his girlfriend. “Tinya! What are you doing here?”

“I missed you,” Phantom Girl rubbed her nose against Jo’s. “Hope I’m not interrupting anything, I know I’ve been a miserable lump since we had that thing with the Infinite Man but I think I’m over it now and I wanted to see you again now that I’m not wallowing in my own angst. I couldn’t wait for you to finish whatever you’re doing here and come back home.” She phased through Jo’s arms and looked around at the frozen room. “What are you two boys doing here anyway? Is that Leeta-87?”

“Hi Phantom Girl!” Elastic Lad beamed. “It sure is Leeta-87! Ultra Boy wanted some more information about her, so I figured this was the best way to do it! See, the Geneosphere is-“

“It’s okay.” Smiling back, Tinya tapped her forehead. “I got the free infodump at the space elevator planetside.”

“Of course you did,” Elastic Lad slapped his forehead. “Silly me! Well, the more the merrier so welcome aboard! Let’s see if I’ve fixed this, huh?” He spoke another code and the room around them was a blur of movement for almost a minute.

When normal programming resumed again they were still in Leeta-87’s apartment, but she was holstering a small handgun and getting ready to leave the house. She had her back to them when in one fluid movement she spun around, launched herself into a flying kick that sent Ultra Boy flying across the room then grabbed Phantom Girl’s arm and twisted it behind her back. Tinya cried out in pain as she was forced to the floor where Leeta-87 straddled her and held the gun to the back of her head.

“You.” Leeta fixed a steely gaze on Elastic Lad’s astonished face. “You’ve got one chance and one chance only to tell me what you three are doing in my
house. I don’t normally make a habit of killing my opponents but don’t tempt me to make an exception.”

**********
MARS
Legion of Superheroes Headquarters, Bouncing Boy and Duplicate Damsel’s residential quarters
Chuck Taine walked into the living area he shared with his wife to find her sitting at a monitor lost in thought. “Hey there, lovely Lu!” He kissed her on the forehead and Luornu hurriedly switched away from the screen she’d been viewing. Without even noticing, Chuck headed into the couple’s kitchen. “Talk at me,” he continued from the other room, “I’m just grabbing a drink. You want anything?”

“No…no, I’m fine...” Luornu sounded obviously distracted, and this time Chuck did notice.

He popped his head around the doorway, raising an eyebrow quizzically. “You sure? You don’t sound fine…”

“No, no, everything..everything’s fine. Everything’s great.” She forced a smile and split into two women. While one of the Duplicate Damsels remained seated and called up the information her husband had come here to discuss, the other one approached Chuck and returned his kiss. “How’s everybody after your trip to the Sorceror’s World? How are Blok and Diamond Damsel after their transformations? How’s Phantom Girl..?”

“I’m almost scared to say anything because I don’t want to jinx it, but everybody’s actually better than ever!” Bouncing Boy smiled. He poured himself a chilled Mars Pop from a wall-mounted beverage dispenser and savoured the sweet fizzy concoction. “Blok’s gotten himself a power upgrade, Diamond Damsel can turn back to human again, even Tinya came out of her funk. I’m glad, I was really starting to worry about her.”

“Yes…” Luornu held herself and leaned against the doorframe. “Yes, I suppose that is good for Phantom Girl.” Luornu’s second self interrupted from the other room. “You’re not here to talk about Phantom Girl though, you’re here to find out what Mandalla and Power Boy have been doing, so let’s get down to it.”

“Let’s.” He gulped down the rest of his drink, placed an arm around his wife’s waist and walked her into the living room to rejoin herself. “I’ll be honest, I’ve not been looking forward to this but we need to know. So what’s the damage?”

“Well that’s the thing.” Luornu called up some files for her husband to view. “The Oversight Watch have been busy, they’ve intercepted an undercover Dark Circle agent from causing havoc on Weber’s World and quelled uprisings on both Femnaz and Avalon. It turns out there’s a very large movement of Darkseid worshippers on Avalon that the rest of the UP are completely ignorant of.”

“Let me have a look,” Chuck leaned over his wife’s shoulder. “Hmm. They aren’t doing an entirely terrible job, but still…there was no reason for anyone to interfere on Femnaz. Internal political disputes are not things that a group like us should be sticking our noses into, it’s not our place to tell other worlds how they should be run.”

“No,” Luornu agreed. “It’s not. We need to be seen as impartial to retain our credibility. But Chuck, I’ve been reading up on Femnaz’s political situation. Fiara Blacque would have set gender relations back decades on that world if she’d taken leadership for herself. Men are already second class citizens on Femnaz but things could be much much worse than they are without the Oversight Watch’s interference.”

“You sound like you’re defending them,” Bouncing Boy straightened up. “Makkia Vei and Ron-Karr are full-fledged villains, they’ve both come to blows with the Legion before.”

“I know.” Luornu turned her chair around to face her husband. “And I’m not saying that we shouldn’t continue to keep an eye on them, but—“

“But what, Lu?”

“But…” She paused while she considered her next words. “But I guess what I’m saying is that while the Legion of Superheroes can’t be seen to interfere in situations like that…maybe somebody should.

...I think the Oversight Watch might actually be doing the right thing.”

**********
CADMU
Geneosphere Archival Level 7
Ultra Boy rubbed his head, groaning. As soon as he saw Phantom Girl’s predicament his eyes widened. “Tinya!”

“Jo, it’s okay!” Phantom Girl reassured her lover, ignoring the pain of her arm being twisted behind her. “Really!”

“It will be,” Leeta-87 added coolly. “If everyone keeps their heads, everyone gets to keep their heads. If you know what I mean.” She nudged her gun against Tinya’s skull.

“This is…this isn’t even possible!” Elastic Lad blurted. “There are no hard light systems in the Geneosphere, no forcefield generators! How is this happening?”

“What are you talking about?” Leeta-87 asked, her dark eyes narrowed in suspicion.

“I don’t know how this is happening,” Elastic Lad babbled nervously, “But we’re on the Geneosphere. You’re not actually Leeta-87, you’re a construct of the Lineage Immersion program. We came here looking for information on Leeta-87 and somehow you gained some kind of autonomy. It must be some kind of bug in the system, but I have no idea how this is even physically possible, this hardware doesn’t allow for tactile interaction! It’s a security feature to prevent exactly this kind of thing happening! This isn’t possible!”

“Stop saying that!” Leeta-87 barked. While she was busy with Elastic Lad, Jo saw his chance. Using ultra-speed, he rushed the woman holding his girlfriend hostage and was completely taken aback when she released her hold on Phantom Girl and used Ultra Boy’s own momentum to fling him into Elastic Lad. The two men knocked over an incidental table and crashed into a wall, Elastic Lad’s rubberised body protecting both of them from serious injury. As soon as she was free, Phantom Girl turned intangible and took position on Leeta-87’s other side.

“You think you’re the first metas I’ve encountered?” Leeta-87 sniped. “You may be fast, but I’ve got lifetimes of skill.” She fired her gun at Ultra Boy and Elastic Lad, causing them both to scatter.

“You have to listen to me!” Elastic Lad pleaded as he reached for her with elongated arms. “This isn’t what you think it is, you’re a rogue program! I’m Neocaste, my name is Jams-Ols 5!”

Leeta-87 deftly avoided his snaking arms, backflipping through Phantom Girl’s still intangible form to land on the other side of the room. “You need to do better research,” she taunted. “Next time you decide to impersonate one of the heroes of my planet, make sure you get their powers and their designation right. You may look like Jams-Ols 3, but I can assure you he doesn’t have stretching powers.”

“Elastic Lad!” Phantom Girl called out. “Weren’t you giving this thing voice commands before? Tell it to shut down!”

“Oh gosh, of course!” Elastic Lad retracted his limbs. “Execute emergency shutdown A-3-“ Even as he uttered the command, Leeta fired at the freckled teen straight through Phantom Girl. He cried out in pain and drooped to the floor insensate.

“I wasn’t sure whether that would affect you or not, ghost girl. Either way I knew it’d take one of you down though.”

Tinya spun on her heel. “It’s Phantom Girl, you malfunctioning piece of junk! And you’d better hope that boy’s not seriously hurt!” She advanced on Leeta and kicked out, but the artificial woman easily dodged.

“Tinya, he’s okay!” Jo cried out. “I think so anyway, it’s hard to tell…but I’m pretty sure she just used a stun beam, there’s no external damage and my penetra-vision can’t see any internal damage either.”

“Congratulations, you’ve called my bluff.” Leeta swung the butt of her gun at Tinya’s head but it swiped straight through harmlessly. “I may not be a killer, but I’m still going to make the three of you regret breaking into my home, whoever you are.” Phantom Girl lashed out again, and this time Leeta grabbed the part of Tinya's foot that she knew must be solid and flipped the heroine.

“Honey, I’ve got this.” Ultra Boy moved Elastic Lad to the side of the room at ultra-speed and stood defensively over his lover while she recovered from being thrown. “We passed a droid when we first arrived here, go see if you can get it to shut this thing down. Now that I know how good she is the kid gloves are off.”

“Sure,” Phantom Girl nodded. “Be careful, Jo.” She phased through the floor and was gone.

“I don’t know why you’re maintaining this ridiculous pretence,” Leeta-87 levelled her gun at Jo, “But you just made a big mistake, speedy. I don’t need to shoot where you are if I can shoot where you’re going to be.” True to her word, she anticipated his next blur of movement and struck him square in the chest with a stun beam. To her surprise, Jo took it without flinching.

“I wasn’t exaggerating,” Jo said calmly. “I’ve seen what you’re capable of now, but you…you have no idea what I’m capable of.” As he’d switched his ultra-energy from speed to invulnerability to intercept her blast, he switched it once again to flash vision and glared at her gun. He’d assumed the Lineage Immersion program wasn’t sufficiently advanced to replicate the gun melting to slag as it would in the real world, but had gambled that whatever technology was maintaining this illusion wouldn’t be able to cope with a dramatic spike in temperature. As a result, he wasn’t at all surprised when the gun disappeared in a violent flash of light. Leeta on the other hand was flabbergasted.

“How many powers do you have??” she asked, staring at him slack-jawed.

“Enough,” Jo smirked. He approached her, sure to keep his invulnerability in place. “Now you need to listen to me…you may not believe that you’re just an overactive computer simulation and that’s okay. We can deal with that later. But you do need to understand that we’re not here to hurt you.” Leeta-87 faltered, and Jo continued. “Elastic Lad said that the Geneosphere can’t cause harm to anyone, is that true?”

“I don’t need to answer you!” Leeta growled, stepping away from him into a defensive posture.

“No, you don’t need to.” Jo stopped walking forward and placed his hands up in a gesture of surrender. “I”m hoping you will though. Because if this place is incapable of hurting me and my friends by accident, then that means someone must have set this up on purpose. And if that’s the case, I need to know who that could be.”

“I-I—“ Leeta-87 stumbled over her words. Ultra Boy could see that he was getting through to her. He didn’t expect her to believe her own artificial nature, but she was starting to realise that there was more to this apparent home invasion than she’d assumed. They really hadn’t tried to hurt her until after she’d hurt them…and if they hadn’t been metas, she might have hurt them seriously indeed. Why would anyone want that? She relaxed her posture slightly. “I know the three of you aren’t native Cadmians,” she explained, “I know everybody on this planet. With powers and costumes like yours, you must be known to somebody though. Wait with your friend while he wakes up, call the one named Phantom Girl back here and I’ll get in touch with Kimball Zendak.” The mention of Zendak’s name didn’t entirely surprise Ultra Boy. The Intergalactic Law Patrol had been in touch with him when Jo had encountered the real Leeta-87 in the past so it made sense that they’d have developed a working relationship prior to that. So why did he feel like Zendak’s name should mean more to him here and now? He cast his eyes upon the picture of Leeta-87 and her partner mounted on the wall and the pieces fell into place as he recognised the man in the picture.

...Zendak. Zendak was her lover!

Everything in the room froze in place once more, before it rather anti-climactically blinked out completely and left Ultra Boy and Elastic Lad alone in an amber-walled room. Elastic Lad stood to his feet, visibly groggy. “Ultra Boy..? Wha’ happened..?”

“We couldn’t stop the program,” Phantom Girl announced as she entered the room once more through the floor. “It was on a degrading loop, and I didn’t want to risk her hurting either of you anymore than she already had so I had to get into the CPU and trash it. Sorry boys, I may have ruined whatever it was you were looking into until the Cadmu techs can fix whatever damage was done.”

“S’okay,” Elastic Lad slurred, “Think I can prolly do with a sit down anyway…”

Elastic Lad slumped against the wall and Phantom Girl rushed to help him stand. “Wow,” she remarked, “That thing really did a number on you, I always thought you were pretty much invulnerable!"

“Synapse disruption,” Elastic Lad wagged a finger drunkenly as he tried to explain. “Elasticic…elasto….stretchiness not a help ‘gainst stun gun.” He giggled at his own sorry state.

“Let’s get back down to Cadmu,” Phantom Girl suggested. “Jo?”

Ultra Boy was still staring blankly at the wall where Zendak and Leeta’s picture had been only moments ago. “Hmm? Oh! Oh yeah, of course.” He took position on Elastic Lad’s other side and helped Tinya walk him out. Jo’s head was swimming. History didn’t record that Leeta-87 had ever even met Chief Zendak. That wouldn’t have meant a thing if their relationship were purely professional, but if he’d been in a romantic relationship with her…how was that something that had never been so much as mentioned in any of the retellings of her life?

He’d hoped coming here would answer some questions, but instead it had just created more...

**********
ELSEWHERE
In a dimly lit room, a woman in a tightly-fitting bodysuit watched via a surveillance device she’d hacked into as Ultra Boy and Phantom Girl helped Elastic Lad into the Geneosphere’s elevator. It had been a long time since she’d had to dissuade anybody from looking into Leeta-87’s life and she’d never had to go to such permanent lengths to erase that information. In a different time, she would have grieved the loss of that data. The Leeta Lineage had utterly and irrevocably ended today thanks to her interference. Nobody would ever be able to access those mindfiles again, she hadn’t even left enough intact for Kid Computo to reconstruct. In a strange sad way it actually gave her a sense of closure though. Nothing tied her to Leeta at all anymore.

The woman’s communicator beeped. Instantly she knew who it was, only one person had access to this channel. “The Legion just took a visit to the Geneosphere,” a gruff man’s voice reported.

“I know,” the woman replied, her voice modulator hiding any intonation.

“Do you need me to take care of it?” the man asked.

“No.” She answered without hesitation. “No, the Legion of Superheroes won’t be a problem Kimball.”

“Good,” the Chief Commanding Officer of the Science Police replied. “But don’t underestimate the Legion, if they decide there’s a mystery to uncover they’ll uncover it.”

“They won’t be a problem,” she repeated without emotion. “I have to go, I’ll file a more detailed report later today.”

Then the woman named 89 shut off communications and walked out of the room.

So didn't see that coming Raz, fantastic! That really raises the stakes with the Oversight Watch too as we now know who is protecting them. Excellent! Loved the Cadmus immersion program was fun too.

Bloks New power levels are great, be interesting to see him in action.

Lu's suspicious mind is funny to read, somehow I think Tinya and Chuck will get it in the neck still. And if DD is not against the Oversight Watch per se it could easily lead to a split in the team... Eeek!

More, more, more!

Thanks Harbinger! I'm glad the Leeta revelation worked Stuff with the Oversight Watch should be taking a front seat pretty soon and Blok might get a workout even sooner!

Loved Lu and Chuck's different opinions on the oversight watch. interested to see where this goes.

Although Blok doesn't have full Shazam powers, what he does have makes him very formidable.

Loved the CM3 bit!

Forgot to mention too, but I like that Lydda's raw strength is even greater than a Daxamite's!

Thanks IB! I can't remember if I decided Lydda should be stronger than a Daxamite or if it's something I stole from the comic after she fought Mordru's shadow demons in LO3W but I think it suits her anyway:)

MARS
Legion of Superheroes Headquarters
Jo Nah and Tinya Wazzo carried a plate of food each as they left one of their base’s many canteen areas to eat their dinner beneath the dual moons of Mars outdoors.

The fourth floor’s protruding balcony was a popular destination. Verdant plant life filled the air with a pleasant scent while an almost imperceptible environmental shield protected dining Legionnaires from the Martian elements. A bubbling stream cut through the centre of the balcony, photoreactive pigments in the water gradually glowing brighter as night fell. At one table Jacques Foccart and Drura Sehpt were lost in private conversation, her stark white skin contrasted against the dark chocolate of Jacques’ fingers as he stroked her forearm affectionately. At another table, Ayla Ranzz play-wrestled Darvan Locke for the last rose-honey slice on their shared dessert platter.

Tinya smirked as she made herself comfortable at an empty table. “Look at those two,” she pointed casually at Lightning Lass and Light Lad. “They’re so cute together, I always knew she could do better than Timber Wolf.”

“Aw come on babe.” Jo took a bite out of a meaty red-hued drumstick. “Timber Wolf’s not that bad.”

“Ugh, you boys and your man code.” Tinya rolled her eyes in mock disgust. “If Shady were here, she’d agree with me.” With a familiarity borne of years of intimacy, Tinya ignored her own food to pick at Jo’s salad. “So did you find out anything more about the elusive Leeta-87?”

Jo shook his head, hurriedly swallowing a mouthful of food so he could answer. “It’s so weird, Elastic Lad took Kid Computo to Cadmu and she couldn’t recover anything from the Geneosphere…they think the hardware might have been modified over time by nanites accidentally introduced into the tech at some point in the past…it’s called the Science Planet for a reason I guess, it’s not totally unbelievable that it could just be someone’s experiment gone wrong.”

“But you don’t believe it, do you?” Tinya pulled her silky black hair over her shoulder and eyed her boyfriend knowingly.

“Not even a little bit,” Jo answered bluntly. “There are too many questions. How come there’s no record of Leeta-87 between the time I met her in the past and her death a year later? How come, when everything else for 87 lifetimes was documented, none of that year was…including her relationship with Zendak? And it’s awful convenient that the program only sabotaged us when that was the part of her life we started looking into. Maybe I’ve just learned to be overly suspicious from my Espionage Squad girlfriend but my gut says there’s more to this.”

“Hey!” Phasing through the table, Tinya poked Jo in the belly. “Don’t blame me for your gut, buster!”

Jo laughed and leaned across the table to kiss her quickly. The two continued eating, teasing one another and taking advantage of the rare opportunity to just relax and enjoy one another’s company without having a crisis to rush to or from. Other Legionnaires came and went as they ate, and when the couple had finished their meal they saw that Bouncing Boy was the most recent arrival. Unlike everyone else out here though, Chuck Taine clearly had something weighty on his mind. He didn’t hear Jo or Tinya say hello at first, though once he realised they’d spoken he did a double-take. “Ultra Boy? I thought I assigned you to the Takron-Galtos team?”

“You did,” Jo answered congenially. “I asked Cosmic Boy to take my place, I’ve got some detective work I want to get into. You don’t mind?”

“Hmm?” Chuck realised he was frowning and consciously relaxed. “No, no, of course not. That does explain why I haven’t been able to find Cos anywhere though, I’ve been looking for him all over.”

“Sorry if I got in the way of something, buddy.” Jo stood up and patted Chuck on the shoulder before he leaned down to give Tinya a parting kiss. “I’d stay and chat but that work I mentioned is waiting. See you guys round, huh?”

Tinya watched Jo walk away with an appreciative smile before she turned back to Chuck. “Okay, what’s up?” she asked in a tone that was straight to the point while still affectionate.

“I’ve been with the Legion a long time,” Chuck explained, “But I haven’t been leader all that long and well…I guess I was hoping I could get some advice from someone who’s had more experience.”

“I may not have ever led the Legion,” Tinya replied as she took a sip of something pale blue from a long glass, “But I’ve been a part of it since just about forever…anything I can help with?”

“Actually…actually, maybe there is!” Chuck took Ultra Boy’s empty seat and the two were soon immersed in conversation.

Neither of them noticed when Luornu Durgo Taine stepped out on to the balcony with a plate of food, nor did they notice the startled and slightly hurt expression which crossed her face before she turned around and walked right back inside.

**********
TAKRON-GALTOS
McCauley Island, Workforce Compound
Before his bizarre and very public death many months ago, Leland McCauley VI had won a contract to furnish the prison planet Takron-Galtos with a base of operations for a proposed team of superwardens who would come to be known as the Workforce. After his death and the controversy surrounding it, work had slowed to a crawl. The artificial island was still funded by McCauley’s estate though, and it was on this island that eight Legionnaires now stood in the warm afternoon sun. Cosmic Boy, Blok, Sun Boy, Shrinking Violet, Polar Boy, Color Kid, Matter-Eater Lad and Shadow Lass had been delivered to an open field littered with the carcasses of Science Police vehicles that had given their existence at one stage or another in resistance to one of the planet’s infrequent attempted prison breaks. Around the perimeter of the field was a ring of enormous imported Vornian redwood trees, their trunks a couple of meters around and hundreds of meters high. Though there were no visible indicators, every Legionnaire knew the placid-looking environment was littered with an array of surveillance and defence equipment.

“So where are they?” Shrinking Violet asked, hands on her hips in a stance which made her annoyance clear.

“I’m with Violet,” Polar Boy added. “We haven’t seen a sign of life since those warden droids flew us here over a poison sea ten minutes ago. It’s rude!” He folded his arms across his chest and pouted.

“Seven minutes ago,” Cosmic Boy corrected him tersely. “Bouncing Boy agreed to send a contingent of Legionnaires here as a favour to the UP. After the destruction of the Dominion homeworld the Legion aren’t in the galaxy’s good books as much as we once were. We need to try and strengthen our relationships, and if I can take a day off of planning my own wedding to be here I’m sure it’s not going to kill any of the rest of us to exercise a little patience either.”

“Besides,” Matter-Eater Lad spoke up in an effort to lighten the mood, “How often does a Legion mission mean relaxing outdoors on a nice sunny day? You ask me—“ Tenzil looked up at the almost cloudless sky overhead and stopped mid-sentence, removing the sunglasses which had been shielding his eyes. “Oh. Hi there.”

“Hello Legionnaires, forgive our tardiness.” A clean-cut blond teen in a red and black sleeveless bodysuit greeted them from above, metal bracers on each arm glinting in the afternoon light. He was standing on a hover platform, seven other costumed individuals behind him. “I’m Dyrk Magz,” he introduced himself as the platform softly landed. “But you can call me Magno. We really appreciate you agreeing to this training session.”

“I don’t meet many other Braalians in our line of work,” Cosmic Boy approached his blond counterpart and shook his hand. “The pleasure’s all mine.”

“Takron-Galtos has been wanting a home team of super-powered defenders for some time,” Magno explained. “The Planetary Board recognise it’s something that has been lacking here. This will be the Workforce’s first field test against live powered opponents so we’re pretty excited. I’ll introduce you to the rest of my team!”

“I know this one.” Shrinking Violet stepped forward and poked a finger at a red-skinned woman with a short stylised bob of dusky blue hair. She wore a skintight black leotard with strategically placed cutouts, and she looked almost embarrassed to have been recognised. “Sizzler?” Vi continued. "Sizzle Lass? Something else else like that. And she’s a villain.”

“Please don’t call me Sizzle Lass,” the Abaddonian girl groaned. “It’s Sizzle. Just Sizzle. And I’m not a villain, I was a Substitute Villain and not even much of that. I’m trying to make amends for whatever idiocy led me to think working with that squaj Bile could ever be a good idea.”

“Duplicate Damsel didn’t come?” A broad-shouldered man sounded disappointed as he spoke up, wearing a loose-fitting purple tunic which left his muscular arms and legs bare. His outfit was accented with a high orange collar, belt and boots. His brown hair had lighter streaks and his fringe swept down to the left, almost covering his left eye. The young man's eyes were both visible enough however that the Legionnaires could see that one was amber and one purple just like Duplicate Damsel herself.

“This is our resident Carggite Triplicate Boy,” Magno explained with a wry smile. “He’s kind of a Duplicate Damsel fanboy, though you probably didn’t need me to tell you that.”

“And what’s your name, gorgeous?” Sun Boy sauntered up to a buxom magenta-skinned woman dressed in extremely revealing slick black vinyl. Her lower face was covered by something resembling a gas mask, and she glared with silent intensity at the flirtatious hero.

One of her teammates stepped forward, an unassuming man in a grey and black jumpsuit. “This is Twine,” the man spoke on her behalf. “She doesn’t talk much. I’m Void.” He locked eyes for only an instant with Sun Boy before Void's attention shifted to Shadow Lass standing back away from the rest of the group. Tasmia didn’t like the way this Void person seemed to be sizing her up and unconsciously filled the interior of her cape with deep shadow to cloak herself within.

“Which leaves our last three,” Magno continued completely oblivious to any tension mounting between the groups. “Ion, Gear and Bioluminescent Lass.” Ion, a dark-skinned woman with a thick head of frizzy black hair bowed almost formally. Gear, a friendly young black man with a very close-cropped mohawk enthusiastically shook all the Legionnaire’s hands with a wide smile. His body was covered in seams and his eyes glowed green but aside from that he seemed surprisingly normal. By contrast Bioluminescent Lass was tall and wispy, almost ethereal looking. A long ponytail of pale yellow hair reached past her waist and she wore satin-like fabric draped over her frame. As her unwieldy name suggested, she was surrounded by an aura of soft light and of all the Workforce she seemed the one least at home on a prison planet. Blok allowed himself a small smile as he looked upon her, reminded of the first time he’d seen the White Witch and how she too had seemed utterly out of place among the more boisterous Legionnaires.

“So what’s the plan?” Cosmic Boy asked. “How will we be helping train your Workforce?”

“Simulated prison break,” Magno explained simply. “All you need to do is make it past that ring of trees, while we try to bring you back to the holding cell.”

“Holding cell?” Color Kid spoke up for the first time as he looked around the spacious field. “Uh, what holding cell..?”

“Sorry, that was my cue!” A small panel slid away from Gear’s hip, revealing intricate microcircuitry beneath what the Legionnaires had assumed till now was his skin. He tapped away at a couple of buttons and a glowing green cube appeared to the group’s left, easily large enough to hold both teams comfortably.

Matter-Eater Lad whistled. “Man, Brainy would love you.”

“Sounds good to me,” Cosmic Boy took charge. “We won’t be going easy on you and we expect the same treatment. You’ve got some real monsters imprisoned here, if we’re helping you learn to deal with them we need to do it properly.”

“Of course,” Magno agreed happily.

“Enough talk,” Shadow Lass announced. Of all the Legionnaires, she alone had noticed the sadistic smirk Void had given at Cosmic Boy’s suggestion. “When do we start?”

Bioluminescent Lass suddenly flared brilliantly bright, blinding the majority of the Legionnaires. “How about now?” Magno grinned, pleased with his forward planning.

Shrinking Violet instantly shrunk to microscopic size while Sun Boy leaped into the air. He’d just opened his mouth to make a snappy comment about his own powers protecting him from intense light when he fell shoulder-first into the grass. “Ow!” Dirk complained. “What the sprock’s wrong with my flight ring?”

“That’d be me,” Gear volunteered. “Remember when I shook all your hands? Yeah, I uploaded schematics for your flight rings and came up with a jamming device. Made contacts to filter Bioluminescent Lass’s spectral wavelength too. What can I say, I’m a resourceful guy.”

“What you are,” Cosmic Boy responded, “Is a guy who’s full of enough metal that I don’t need to see you to affect you. Shadow Lass, give us some cover!” Cosmic Boy gestured, and Gear was knocked back over a dozen feet almost taking Void and Twine with him.

Through clenched teeth, Shadow Lass grunted three small words in response. “I’m on it.” The lightburst had been like an icepick to her brain, but she wasn’t going to let her friends down this quickly. Darkness fell over the two teams, enveloping everyone.

In response, Bioluminescent Lass glowed even brighter. While the rest of the two teams were still cloaked in blackness, the fragile looking woman stood out like a beacon. “I genuinely don’t want to harm you,” she spoke for the first time with a voice that was lilting, “I’ve read your file and I know you have a vulnerability to bright light, Shadow Lass. I will increase my photonic output if necessary however. Please dispel your power.”

“It’s cute that you think I’m going to give you the chance to hurt anyone on my team,” Sun Boy smiled as he approached the glowing woman through the darkness. “I mean you’re hot stuff, but I’m hotter.” He crouched down to touch the grass and ignited it in a waist-high ring around her, careful to keep at a distance safe enough that she wouldn’t actually be burned. The temperature of the flames rapidly increased however, and Bioluminescent Lass could feel her head swimming.

“Hi,” Sizzle suddenly slipped out of the darkness and into the faint aura of light created by the combined effect of Bioluminescent Lass and Sun Boy’s powers. “Remember me?” She too crouched down, and placed both arms directly into the circle of fire.

“So you’re fireproof,” Dirk shrugged. “I am too, looks like we’re at an impasse, Sizzle Lass. Glow Girl here’s still going down.”

“I’m not fireproof,” the red-skinned woman retorted. “I can just turn it into something else. Like say, electricity. And I told you, the name’s Sizzle.” The ring of flame seemed to be sucked into Sizzle, dancing around her outstretched arms and transforming into white-blue arcs of electrical energy. She released the absorbed power at a wide-eyed Sun Boy, and he flew back through the air instantly unconscious.

Surprisingly, the darkness surrounding the two teams dissipated into nothingness and the Legion were forced to shield their eyes with their arms. While Cosmic Boy and Magno were revealed to have been in an intense magnokinetic stand-off the entire time, everyone else took a moment to reorient themselves. “Where are Shadow Lass and Shrinking Violet?” Triplicate Boy asked, the first to notice the two women were no longer present. He split into three identical men and his second body spoke up. “Void and Ion are missing too!” His third body wasted no time leading the trio to rush Polar Boy. “Void and Ion aren’t missing,” he corrected himself. “Think about it, bros. They’re capturing those two Legionnaires like we’re about to nab this one.” Two of the Triplicate Boys grabbed Polar Boy’s arms while the third picked up his legs. Ungraciously they started lugging him towards the holding cell where Sizzle was now dragging Sun Boy.

“Get off me!” Polar Boy shouted, his eyes shut against the blazing light. He couldn’t focus enough to do anything fancy, so instead he projected an aura of cold so intense the startled Triplicate Boys dropped him immediately. “Can someone do something about this sprocking light?!” Brek bellowed angrily.

“Now that my eyes have adjusted…well, they don’t feel so much like they’re about to melt…sure.” Color Kid winced as he allowed himself to gaze upon Bioluminescent Lass directly. He knew he wouldn’t be able to keep this up for more than a second or two, but that was all the time he needed. Just as abruptly as Shadow Lass’s power had vanished, Bioluminescent Lass was no longer incandescent. She was still radiating light, but Color Kid had changed its hue to almost perfectly match the grass and sky around her. As long as the Legion didn’t look directly at her, they found they could see well enough to function.

“That was clever.” Gear had recovered from his earlier knockback and advanced on Color Kid and Matter-Eater Lad. As he came closer, his arms extended and became lined with small crackling filaments. Panels emerged from the sides of his head and slid forward to cover his eyes, a pale green grid pattern lining them. “You’ve probably got other tricks up your sleeve, lucky for me I can switch to radar so I don’t need my eyes at all. Neat, huh?”

Gear sounded genuinely impressed with Ulu’s use of power. What could have been quite threatening came across more as kind of endearingly weird, but Color Kid knew they were still defeated if he reached them. He looked across to Tenzil expectantly. “What?” Matter-Eater Lad shrugged. “What do you want me to do? I can’t eat his arms, that’s just gross!”

Before he could take another step forward, Gear felt a giant stone hand close around his waist, and Blok hurled him hundreds of feet away. Matter-Eater Lad and Color Kid flinched as they dimly heard branches crack. “Geez, big guy,” Tenzil scratched his head. “Not to seem ungrateful or anything, but wasn’t that a little overkill?”

“Gear is a Linsnarian,” Blok explained patiently. “He is much more durable than he seems, he will suffer minor injuries at worst. Of all our opponents today however he is the most resourceful, as he advised us earlier himself. It was important to remove him from the field of battle. Now if you will excuse me, I should act quickly to - aargh!” Thin snaking tendrils of energy suddenly lashed at Blok, whipping about him and ensnaring the massive Legionnaire. Trembling with pain he turned to face his assailant, the woman named Twine. Her expression wavered only for the briefest of instants as she realised he wasn’t going to drop straight away but she quickly saved face and focused on maintaining the strings of hot pink energy which came forth from outlets in her wrists. “...Sapping…strength…” Blok grimaced.

“Now this is something I can bite into!” Tenzil jogged around behind Blok.

“Uh, Matter-Eater Lad?” Ulu followed gingerly. “If that’s sapping Blok’s strength just by touching him and he’s stronger than Mon-El now, I’m not sure you should—“ The former Substitute Hero’s warning was too late however, as Tenzil bit down on the energy tendrils. Matter-Eater Lad cried out in shock and collapsed in a heap, as did an utterly surprised Twine. Her power shut off, and while Blok took a second to compose himself Color Kid sighed. “…Never mind.”

“Any time you guys want to give me a hand here? Ow!” Polar Boy landed in a heap on the grass, humbled by Triplicate Boy’s mastery of tri-jitsu.

“I trust that you will not require both of us,” Blok replied calmly. “I feel that I may be of more use helping turn the tide for Cosmic Boy."

“Sure thing, Blok.” Color Kid watched the stone Legionnaire rush off and turned with a vaguely bemused expression to Polar Boy. "Brek, can’t you just freeze them?”

“Great idea!” Polar Boy snapped. “Why didn’t I think of that?!” As he clambered indelicately to his feet, he did trap one of the Triplicate Boys in ice from the waist down. The immobile Carggite instantly vanished as he was reabsorbed by his other bodies, leaving the ice behind to litter the battlefield with other chunks of ice left over from previous attempts. Triplicate Boy split into three again, and the three bodies kicked out in unison to shatter an ice wall that Polar Boy was erecting to shield himself.

“Hmm, I see what you mean.” Color Kid glanced back and forth between Bioluminescent Lass and the Triplicate Boys. “Okay, you’re going to have to take care of her though. She’s only got one trick, but she’s very good at it. She keeps changing her wavelength, I can’t keep up with her and deal with these three as well.”

“Works for me,” Polar Boy nodded. He backed away behind his old friend and built a foot-thick ice dome around the glowing woman. Her light was so bright that it could still be seen even now, but it was almost completely diffused.

“Color Kid, right?” One of the Triplicate Boys asked. “I’m surprised the Legion even sent you here,” a second body smirked. “We wanted a challenge, not a new paint job.”

Ulu was completely unfazed as the three men encircled him. “You know, for someone who is completely normal by his own planet’s standards you’re awfully quick to dismiss someone with a real power. We’re here to help train you, so here’s your first lesson: don’t ever underestimate an opponent.” Having worked with Color Kid for so long, Polar Boy instinctively knew to turn away at this point. Triplicate Boy wasn’t so lucky. The world exploded into a lurching psychedelic palette of colours, overwhelming the three bodies. One of the Triplicate Boys stumbled over his own feet trying to back away and fell over. The others stared in mute awe, unable to cope with the constantly changing visual input.

Magno and Cosmic Boy found themselves too evenly matched. The husks of vehicles around them floated into the air and were attracted closer or repelled away several feet at a time by the conflicting magnetic fields. Neither of the men would budge and in fact Cosmic Boy was surprised to find that the young teen was as strong-willed as himself. Rokk didn’t know how long they’d be able to keep this up head to head, though he’d already thought of three ways to break the standoff if he had to. The good thing about being part of a team, he mused, was knowing that he wasn’t in this alone. The corners of his mouth turned up ever so slightly, and Magno gave him a quizzical look. “What are you so happy about?” the younger Braalian asked.

“I believe Cosmic Boy is appreciating our victory.” Magno jumped as he noticed for the first time Blok’s shadow looming over him. He turned away from Cosmic Boy for the briefest of instants, but it was enough time for Rokk to seize the initiative. Magno grunted as a wave of magnetic force slammed him back into Blok’s waiting arms.

Winded, he looked over the battlefield. “You may have overcome most of my team,” he persisted stubbornly, “But Void and Ion are still out there, and they’re both—“

As if they timed it, Shrinking Violet suddenly shot up to full size along with a fuming Ion. Simultaneously, Shadow Lass appeared out of a burst of darkness with Void unconscious at her feet. She removed an intricate grey ring from her finger and dropped it on him with a look of distaste.

“They’ve got themselves their own Imskian,” Vi noted with a hint of smugness. “But they don’t have an Imskian who’s been taught to fight by Karate Kid.”

“And this fool thought his trinket’s little pocket dimension of darkness would be any threat to a Shadow Champion of Talok VIII. Honestly.”

Magno sighed and bowed his head in defeat. “Okay, okay. Wow, I honestly didn’t expect us to get a clean win but I didn’t think we’d be this terrible.”

“Don’t feel too badly,” Rokk gave him an encouraging smile. “Your team took down Sun Boy and Matter-Eater Lad, and if things had been even a little different you may have done a lot better than that. We’ve been doing this for a lot longer than all of you, and we understand the value of teamwork. Don’t think of today as a loss, think of it as an opportunity to learn.”

Magno mulled over Cosmic Boy’s words for a moment then returned his smile. “Yeah…yeah, you’re right. Thanks for your help, Legion!”

“Any time,” Cosmic Boy answered. “Helping out is what the Legion of Superheroes do.” Sun Boy and Matter-Eater Lad were both beginning to stir, so Rokk gathered his team around them.

“Let’s go, Legionnaires.”

**********

Nice! The new Workforce is interesting, and I like the "rebooting" of so many characters - Magno, Gear, Twine, Ion, Sizzle, and Void seems like a slightly different version of Abyss. Cool battle!

D'oh! Void actually is Abyss, I couldn't remember his name because it's been a while and the site I looked up called him Void. It was just reading his name now that jogged my memory, oops! Ah well, I guess if Ayla can be called Lightning Lass, Light Lass, Spark or Gossamer depending when/where she comes from bad guys can change their name across universes too